Rose
by Iniora Nackatori
Summary: Zero is questioning his sanity again. This time, however, his musings about his own name have brought up another’s... OneShot.


Right then. What do you get when you take one part board teenager, one part Zero, and one part Rockman.EXE? An idea sure to make people blink. Three guesses who Zero is!

I did have a story behind this one, at one time _way_ back, but for some reason I can't seem to get the blasted second chapter written. So, off to the one-shot pile it goes. Whether to become a full-fledge fan fiction outside of anything but my mind, only the fates and our friendly Muses know. (Wait, what am I saying? I never finished the plot outline in my head to begin with!)

Rating is for general Zero-ness. ...Okay, less Zero-ness than normal, and he only says one or two curse words. Still, Rating it T just to be safe.

* * *

_**Rose**_

* * *

_For a Rose by any other name is still as sweet_ -- Romeo and Juliet

* * *

I really don't care what William Shakespeare said about names. They're important. They tell you who you are. They tell you _what_ you are. Names don't lie. Even if we don't like them, they still don't lie.

Which is why questioning your name is a very good way to go insane. Especially when those questions start showing up in nightmares which, under normal circumstances, would make any sane person start questioning their sanity.

The only problem is I'm not under normal circumstances.

Nightmares, to me, remind me that I _am_ sane. Being lost in all the blood and wildness of the past reminds me exactly what I'm fighting for. Exactly what I'm trying to prevent. And every time I see my friends' heads on pikes, all I have to do is wake up and grumble, and the both of them start laughing, their heads still firmly connected to the remainder of their bodies. I smile when they laugh, and I watch them as they go about their daily work. X can handle himself now without me having to bail his ass out of whatever idiotic situation he's gotten himself into, so I've managed to break myself of the habit of shadowing him wherever he goes. Axl, on the other hand... Let's just say being his commanding officer comes in very handy every now and then. He is, after all, still a punk.

Nightmares don't faze me...normally. But this nightmare does. And why it does... I never really figured out.

It starts the same as all the others. The same hidden man telling me to do his bidding; which, sadly, because I think this guy is my creator, is destroying the world. And I am _not_ going to destroy the world no matter whom and/or what tells me to do it. But then it starts to shift. It only now started doing this... which is part of what's scaring me. It makes me feel like something falling under the category of Very Not Good is just a breath away on the horizon...

The nightmare shifts right after the man starts going into his serious rant mode, which occurs directly after he's stared at me for what feels like an eternity, watching the blood rivers flowing behind my back. "You will serve me. You will obey me. You will destroy everything. The Internet, the World. Do you understand, Enzan? You will destroy _everything!_"

A voice shouts out. At first, it sounds like my voice, but then it...changes. "Never! I will never serve you, Dr. Wily!"

It was the very first time I ever heard the shadow's name. That's when the voice turns from the voice I know, the voice which is my own, to someone else's voice... but it still feels like it's my voice talking.

"I am a Net Savior!" the kid sounds like he's only thirteen or so. "I swore to defend the Internet and the people who populate it from all trash like you! I will not destroy it! Blues and I... We'll defend our worlds to our last breaths!"

Something hard hits me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of my lungs.

And I wake up. Sitting upright in my bed, the covers pulled tighter than normal around me, sweating. Fearful of every last shadow in my room...

"...Blues..."

And I want Blues. I want to hear his voice comforting me, telling me it was just another nightmare. But I can't. I don't even know who Blues is...

Which, somewhere deep inside of me, makes me feel just about the same as when I finally snapped out of whatever trance I had been in, and found Iris impaled on my sword. Dead. Yet somehow, I feel worse than that whenever I say his name.

Blues is someone I've betrayed before. Blues is someone who trusted me, and I betrayed that trust somehow. Blues is someone who still trusts me, even though I've done something equivalent of killing him. Blues...is someone I don't even think is alive anymore. Or...is he?

Hearing the shadow call me Enzan doesn't help me feel any better, either. Blues and Enzan... What's the connection?

Trust me, I've tried to look it up. There's absolutely no info on the people anywhere in any database. And I've looked all the way back to 20XX...

If it weren't for the fact I feel like I really am going farther off the deep end than normal, I think I'd just give up. Something in me, though, is making me keep on looking. I don't know what it is, but for the sake of my sanity...

_Somebody make it stop!_


End file.
